Imposing criminal liability on juveniles: problem issues and ways to address them

Abstract

The article highlights the issues of how to impose criminal liability on juveniles. Based on the analysis of consistency between the effective Criminal Code of Ukraine and the international standards of juvenile rights protection, the author has outlined the ways of how to improve the existing legal standards of such imposing. More specifically, the grounds for punishment mitigation have been determined depending on the gravity of offence.
 The punishment should be consistent with the offence committed. And the best way to match the punishment and the offence is when the punishment derives from the offence itself, from its nature. A fine will be a good enough response, because it makes the committed offence kind of unprofitable for the convicted individual.
 One of the punishments that the Criminal Code of Ukraine anticipates for juveniles is a fine. However, Article 99 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine mentions no minimum fine amount allowed for juveniles. As these specific standards are absent, juveniles should be subject to the general standards available, i.e. the minimum fine amount is equal for both juveniles and adults. It would be reasonable to decrease the minimum fine amount for juveniles in the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The author believes that the only guarantee for this fine to be paid can be the standalone property owned by the convicted individual, which could be foreclosed.
 An important type of punishment for juveniles is correction works. However, no specific conditions of its imposing on juveniles exist. One of the major ways to influence the individual convicted to correction works is labor and disciplinary impact of the labor collective (employees), which is but unfeasible today. In fact, no legal pattern exists to ensure that the employees will fulfill their obligations to rehabilitate the convicted individuals.
 Yet another type of punishment that Article 98 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine anticipates for juveniles is arrest.
 That arrest is considered a milder type of punishment in the punishment list than restraint can be deemed a disadvantage of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, 2001. At the same time, it is proposed to impose the so-called “youth arrest” on the juveniles of fourteen and on older ones, i.e. the service of punishment on days-off or holidays.
 The analysis of the system of punishments imposed on juveniles for the committed offences, which has been made in this article, shows that this system not always makes it possible to select the punishment consistent with the action committed. That is why the author has proposed to add new types of punishment to the already existing statutory system of punishments, such as obligating a juvenile to recover the caused damage or to execute certain works in favor of the affected party to compensate it for the damage caused; depriving a juvenile of the right to be engaged in certain activities; sending a juvenile to a special custodial rehabilitation center.